Doe euthanized after being removed from Northgate Mall Wednesday.

A deer that had to be removed from Northgate Mall Wednesday morning was euthanized because of injuries it sustained.

The doe broke through glass at the mall and got tangled in a metal fence that protects the mall’s carousel, said Lt. Sam Craft of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Durham firefighters had to bend the metal to get the deer free, Craft said. Wildlife officers try to return trapped deer to the wild if possible, but the injuries this deer sustained made euthanasia the better course, he said.

The Durham Sheriff’s Office responded to a call at Northgate Mall after a deer entered the shopping center and became trapped in a gate, according to Tamara Gibbs, spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office. The office reached out to Orange County Animal Control because their team has a tranquilizer gun, which was used in an effort to remove the deer safely.

The state had a growing population of white-tailed deer until either-sex hunting seasons were implemented in the early 1990s. Either-sex seasons across most areas of the state allowed for increased opportunity for hunting of antlerless deer. The size of North Carolina’s deer herd quickly stabilized and has actually started to decrease for most areas of the state, the commission states.